1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a substrate conveying method for conveying a substrate, a recording medium in which a program is recorded for causing the substrate conveying method to be executed, and a substrate conveyor configured to convey a substrate.
2. Description of the Related Art
In manufacturing semiconductor devices, various processing apparatuses are used, for example, to subject a substrate to be processed (hereinafter also referred to as “substrate”), such as a semiconductor wafer, to processes such as oxidation, diffusion, chemical vapor deposition (CVD), etc. As one of such processing apparatuses, a film deposition apparatus is known that is formed of a vertical heat treatment apparatus capable of performing heat treatment on multiple substrates to be processed at a time.
The film deposition apparatus includes a boat, an elevation mechanism, and a transfer mechanism (substrate conveyor). The boat is a substrate holder configured to be carried into and out of a film deposition chamber while holding multiple substrates at predetermined holding intervals in a vertical direction. The elevation mechanism is provided in a loading area formed below the film deposition chamber. The elevation mechanism moves the boat up and down between the film deposition chamber and the loading area by moving up and down a lid body on which the boat is placed, the lid body closing the opening of the film deposition chamber. The transfer mechanism transfers substrates between the boat carried out to the loading area and a container configured to accommodate multiple substrates.
Film deposition methods using such a film deposition apparatus include a method of depositing a polyimide film on the surface of a substrate. A polyimide film obtained by depositing polyimide on the surface of a substrate may be used as an insulating film in a semiconductor device. As a method of depositing a polyimide film, a film deposition method is known that employs vapor deposition polymerization using, for example, pyromellitic dianhydride (PMDA) and 4,4′-oxydianiline (ODA) as raw material monomers.
In such a film deposition apparatus, in order to increase the number of substrates loadable in the boat, the boat may hold layered bodies at predetermined holding intervals in a vertical direction, the layered bodies each having two substrates stacked in layers with a spacer member provided between their respective bottom surfaces facing each other. (See, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2009-81259.)
Further, there is a substrate conveyor that clamps a substrate with a stopper member and a clamping part in conveying the substrate between a container configured to accommodate substrates and a substrate holding part. (See, for example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2009-99918.) According to the substrate conveyor of Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application No. 2009-99918, the stopper member is provided at the distal end of a fork to come into contact with the periphery of the substrate, and the clamping part is provided on the fork on its proximal end side to be movable back and forth, and is configured to clamp the substrate by pushing the substrate toward the stopper member.